The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-12-03

devise and willing hands perform to restore
her to consciousness. She was the eldest
daughter at home aud leaves an aching void
that will long be felt. long procession OF
friends and neighbors followed the RENAME
to the De Land cemetery. The family have
the sympathy of the entire community in this
sudden and sad bereavement. Miss Knowles
was the daughter of Mr.. and Mrs. R. o.
Knowles, formerly of Ohio. They are in
deep sorrow in this terrible affliction, but
their faith is abiding and all consoling.
Mrs. Jennie M. Hodges, wife of @. l..
Hodges, of Greenfield, Huron county, o.,
passed to the better life, Nov. 16, 1887, aged
| 81 years, ten months and sixteen days. Sis
ter Hodges departure was very sudden, and is
the cause of great sorrow throughout the
| community in which she resided. She was a
woman of most amiable disposition, and
| Christian character. She was beloved by all
who knew her. In her death our church at
New Haven, o., los S one of its brightest
lights, and most highly esteemed members.
Her funeral services were conducted by Rev.
| @. p. Nash, of Peru, o.
| Island, ILL.,, and in bed made messy by
loving hands, was laid at rest the earthly re-
mains of Emily Ballard, wife of Charles d.
| Robinson, and mother of Mrs. E. Ell. Rexford.
Mrs. Robinson was born at Maidstone, county
of Kent, England, July %, 1921. Came to
America when six years old, and settled in
New York City, where, at the age of seven
tee n, che was married to Charles d. Robin
son, and two years later came with him to
Chicago, and m Jade their home at Blue Island,
and after residence of nearly forty eight
years in that locality, passed on to the heav-
emily life, Sunday morning, Nov. 10, leaving
husband, three sons, and six daughters, many
grandchildren, and large number of friends
to mourn her departure. The funeral took
place at the home in Blue Island, the services
being conducted by Rev. J. R. Reitzel, pas
tor of the Congregational church, assisted by
the Universalist pastor.
Although the deceased was not a member
of any church organization, surely she was
most active member in the invisible church
of the Master, where by her truly Christian
spirit, and her devoted Christian life have
wrought what it would take volumes to re-
count. A few incidents rescued from the
many which are recorded only by the angels,
and the grateful hearts she has cheered, will
serve to show her true nobility of character.
In New York City, we find her as little Emily
Ballard, going about in search of the needy
and the distressed here taking some sick
one bowl of broth; here, to some poor
family loaf of new bread, or some other
token of sympathy and good will Once she
goes with some Cruel to the sick babe of a
poor washerwoman, and is gone so long that
her mother becomes worried. The afternoon
passes; the evening comes on; it begins to
grow dark; and the mother goes in quest of
her. She finds her still at the house of the
washerwoman, where she has watched by the
dying babe till its little spirit has fled, and
then, with her own hands, has washed the
little form, dressed it, and otherwise prepared
it for burial This, when scarcely more than
a babe herself,-a child of ten years The
motherliness here manifested in the little
girl is but an index of the woman's whole
life. We're the history of that life gathered
up and told in one word, the word would be
''mother," for such indeed che was. Mother,
not in the narrower sense of loving and car
ing for her own simply, but of loving and
caring for every distressed soul. for every
hungering heart that might need mothers
sympathy and mothers help.
Was she brave ? Yea, verify She comes
to Chicago when it is but "a small village !;
comes by boat, nine years before any rail-
road has entered the town. She goes out
there to live on the prairies, sixteen miles
away, on farm near what is now the village
of Blue Island. Then there was but one
house between her home and Fort Dearborn.
There at time for seven months she saw lot
the face of woman. There in the first nine
years of her pioneer life six children were
born to her. She had come to those wilds
intending to return in nine months and visit
the old home in the East-nine years still
found her in the new. And there when other
settlers had come and a town had sprung up
around her, daughter tells how she remem-
bers we'll a day when a drunken brawl occur
red across the street in view of the mothers
window how a man was stabbed, and how
that mother hurried across into the midst of
the angry combatants, and led the wounded
man forth and into her own kitchen, where
she dressed his wounds and sent him to his
home.
There in the early days when there was a
dearth of doctors and nurses, thet mother
has been found at many bedside of sickness
and pain. A daughter tells how often when
child, she has awakened at night to find
that mother dressing; and on asking her
where she was going, would receive the reply,
am going to this OF that woman who is sick,
or to this or that sick child, to see if cannot
be of some help.
All this sounds like story in romance
like the tale of the sweet Evangeline-but
those who know the past, those who still live
to gratefully remember and bless her, to tes-
tify that unto her motherly care they owe
their life, and their hfe's happiness, these
and many more know how grandly true is
the story. Never a thought of self. Ever re-
wants, or think even of her own needs. So
little had she thought of herself, so much of
others, and others needs, that when her
earthly labors were ended, when the time of
her departure was nigh, her eyes had the in
nocsnt, wondering look of child as she
held the minister's hand, and looking up into
his face, asked the question "Do you think
have done anything worthy to inherit eter-
nal life % Anything worthy! The question
seemed almost a mookery. But it only